Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is important to reflect for a moment on how we have reached this moment. It has been more than a year since the untimely passing of Justice Antonin Scalia in February of 2016. Under article II, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, President Barack Obama had a duty to make a nomination to fill that vacant seat. He met that obligation by nominating Chief Judge Merrick Garland in March of 2016. Yet the leader of the Senate Republicans, Majority Leader McConnell, announced that, for the first time in the 230-year history of the Senate, he would refuse the President's nominee, Judge Garland, a hearing and a vote. Senator McConnell further said that he would refuse to even meet with Judge Garland. It was a transparent political decision made by the Republican leader in the hopes that a Republican would be elected President and fill the vacancy. It was part of a broader Republican political strategy to influence, if not capture, the judicial branch of government on every level of the court system. Not only did the Senate Republicans keep a Supreme Court seat vacant for over a year, they turned the Senate's Executive Calendar into a nomination obituary column for 30 other judicial nominees who had been reported out of the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support.…”